Regis University ePublications at Regis University All Regis University Theses Spring 2008 The exT as Chainsaw Massacre: Our Collective Nightmare Jen Janes Regis University Follow this and additional works at: https://epublications.regis.edu/theses Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Janes, Jen, "The exT as Chainsaw Massacre: Our Collective Nightmare" (2008). All Regis University Theses. 497. https://epublications.regis.edu/theses/497 This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by ePublications at Regis University. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Regis University Theses by an authorized administrator of ePublications at Regis University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Regis University Regis College Honors Theses Disclaimer Use of the materials available in the Regis University Thesis Collection (“Collection”) is limited and restricted to those users who agree to comply with the following terms of use. 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THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: OUR COLLECTIVE NIGHTMARE A thesis submitted to Regis College The Honors Program in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Graduation with Honors by Jen Janes May 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE and ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv INTRODUCTION: THE COLLECTIVE NIGHTMARE 1 PART 1: CANNIBALISM I. INTRODUCTION 6 II. CHAPTER 1: ZOMBIES 7 III. CHAPTER 2: VAMPIRES 12 IV. CHAPTER 3: INBRED HICKS 20 V. CONCLUSION 39 PART 2: IDENTITY I. CHAPTER 1: THE FLESH 40 II. CHAPTER 2: THE MASK 63 III. CHAPTER 3: THE MIND 78 CONCLUSION: SOCIETY 97 BIBLIOGRAPHY 105 iii The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Our Collective Nightmare Introduction: The Collective Nightmare Robin Wood once wrote that horror films “are our collective nightmares.” They are our repressed wishes recreated in the image of the loathsome, and the depths of our subconscious fears incarnated as threats to our lives, well-being, and very culture itself (174). The argument that a horror film is an incarnation of the time and culture’s unconscious fears is compelling. Many older movies no longer frighten us after the passage of time has caused those fears to evolve into others. As Christopher Kelly once said, “…the horror genre, perhaps more than any other, often reflects the mood of the time…” (54). The films under examination in this thesis, particularly The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all carry elements of the moods of their times. Several other films besides The Texas Chainsaw Massacre illuminate the themes under examination, but ultimately, all build up to it. Very often we cannot face the true horror of our lives because it is too difficult for us to handle. Our greatest fears must hide from us in our unconscious minds, because it is the only way we can cope with them. When we do confront our fears, we must do so through symbolic, hypothetical, and entertaining scenarios like films. Horror films are filled with subterranean, almost secret symbolic meanings, and their monsters are our political and social fears in imaginary, mythic terms, particularly, “The gist of horror is facing evils in everyday life. This is to say that the genius of horror is subtext: symbolism that creeps beneath surface meanings to assault our dreams and awaken our minds” (Nelson 382-383). Even if it may seem that certain films carry no meaningful themes whatsoever, several of them may, in fact, be inadvertently infused with social subtexts 1 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Our Collective Nightmare that escape the notice of writers, directors, and viewers alike. Some writers and directors intentionally convey themes of importance to them, most notably Wes Craven, and some films truly are mindless entertainment. Yet we must take into consideration the important point that much of the most famous horror is famous for a reason: it appeals to our hidden fears and desires. From the middle of the last century until the beginning of ours, our collective nightmare of today is no longer the collective nightmare of yesterday. The fifties showed us a nightmare of differing ideologies, and gave us a hero of the norm to conquer it. The sixties brought us a new horror of a new society conquering the old, with good and evil practically indistinguishable. This nightmare continued through the decades, showing us a dark subculture conquering a mainstream one. We may wonder if horror films are the product of an individual’s imagination and meaningless in the context of society at large. However, the history and trend of filmmaking in America suggest otherwise. In early 20th century Hollywood, films were often made with an eye toward making money in the most efficient way possible, and therefore rolled off assembly lines in massive numbers. Such films “often are better indexes of public concerns, shared myths, and mores than individually conceived, more intentionally artistic films are” (Monaco 208-209). Little changed into the seventies, when Hollywood continued to focus on money as its first and only love, using the blockbuster system – putting huge amounts of money into movies for even huger profits – almost exclusively for efficiency and profit (212). 2 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Our Collective Nightmare Specifically, the American horror genre evolved from subversion of the norm to realization that the norm may not be worth saving. Of all these films, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre encapsulates the changing of these nightmares. It is apocalyptic, depicting a catastrophe so complete that societal life can never be the same. The Massacre’s apocalypse is not only destructive, but frighteningly revealing, removing the illusions our culture casts over our cannibalistic and consumptive lifestyles (Phillips 102). Our culture feasts upon the lifeblood of others, namely in the form of currency. It feasts upon its own kind just as much as it feeds on others. The lines we draw between self and other are even more frightening in that they are arbitrary. Any member of society can be the victim, and any member of society can be the killer. It feeds on its own kind through credit card and other debt, and its citizens know happiness only through shopping and consumption. Currently, personal consumption accounts for 65% of our GDP (Taylor 1). Consumption is not just a pastime; it is a lifestyle. We of the recent horror moviegoers are in the unique position of finding ourselves depicted as both predator and prey, cannibal and lunch. This dualism exists because of the particular state of our identities in relation to advertising images and the aim of capitalism itself. Writers such as Barber argue that capitalist advertisers use the concept of autonomy and empowerment that actually make us “vulnerable, unprotected, and susceptible to outside manipulation.” (32). We stand in for the young, carefree, pleasure-seeking youths who tend to populate such films, and we also stand in for the chainsaw-wielding psychopaths who destroy in order to consume and live. 3 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Our Collective Nightmare The result is a conflict of opposing forces which capitalism brings together in ways ultimately detrimental to us. Advertisers, the voice of the capitalist system in general culture, attempt to make us feel that the system can give us the power and freedom to determine our own identities. However, advertisers add the condition that we can only have this power and freedom through our money. Our dollars, they argue, are the votes we cast in the capitalist democracy. Yet when we rely on useless products of capitalism to fulfill our whims and self-determination, we actually surrender our autonomy and freedom and allow the system to determine our identities for us. The idea that we can purchase our own freedom and sense of self-worth eventually enslaves us by turning us into overgrown infants completely dependent on the system for our every desire. The conflict extends to ourselves, because as we are enslaved, we also contribute to the system that enslaves us. We lend our labor to our systematic enslavement in order to possess the buying power with which the system enslaves us. Ultimately, our culture needs horror, because it shows us what we are, and it shows us what our lives are truly like. Scientific and aesthetic abstractions have, in a way, divorced us from the physical world. Horror films, with all their carnality and blood, bring us “back into communication with the physical world.” (Monaco 307). It is as if so much stimulation controls our lives that we must desensitize ourselves and lock ourselves into a sensory bubble. We hide from the rest of the world, and sometimes we must be confronted with our true fears in order to feel human (The American Nightmare). Our capitalist social problems in particular are issues we hear about so often that we shut off our feelings to them, and yet they secretly frighten us, because we know that 4 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Our Collective Nightmare we could fall prey to them.